Hooray for Bollywood

The college's spring prospectus includes a course in the style of dance that used to be confined to Asian films but has now become part of wider British culture.

Beginning on January 19, it consists of 10 weekly workshops.

The course was included because of an overwhelming response to a one-day workshop held in June.

It was part of a varied programme aimed at enticing adults back into education that was launched by boxer Frank Bruno.

The new course will be taught by expert dancers Dorothy Clarke and Sonil Patel.

"There is tremendous demand, and dancers come from all sections of the community," said Mrs Clarke.

"A lot of people have already seen the prospectus and reserved places.

"They are attracted, I suppose, by how much fun it is."

Mrs Clarke, 43, has been a dance teacher for most of her working life.

In recent years she has specialised in teaching a classical Indian form known as Bharatan-atyam in which each movement forms part of a story.

The Bollywood style of dancing, without which no musical of the genre would be complete, owes much of its movements to dance techniques that evolved in the Punjab.

But Bollywood dancing is not the only unusual subject in the New College Something Xtra prospectus.

Other courses and workshops include:

l Coping with becoming a step-parent.

l Designing and painting items such as buckets and boots in canal art style.

l Modelling flowers and insects using wire and paper.

l Cycle Round Swindon. This is a one-day instruction session in which riders will be led across Swindon entirely on cycle routes and away from dangerous roads.

l Wiltshire War Walks. This two-session course is devoted to the battles fought across the county down the centuries.

There are more than 60 different courses in the Something Xtra prospectus and many more in the mainstream part-time courses section.

This includes traditional subjects such as effective business communication, information technology, basic and intermediate foreign language courses and improving numeracy and literacy.

New College's Community Education Co-ordinator Paula Kimmel said: "I think these courses are brilliant because they are giving more and more people a reason to become involved in education again, when before they might not have."

Barrie Hudson